BlackBerry CEO happy with progress despite loss

Quarterly loss is less than expected

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BlackBerry's Chairman and CEO, John Chen, has said he is "very pleased" with the progress the ailing company is making, despite a quarterly loss of $423 million (£254 million, AU$457 million).

The Canadian smartphone firm, which once ruled the smartphone market and still has a sizeable chunk of the business sector, brought in just $976 million (£586 million, AU$1 billion) in revenue for the three months ending on March 1.

The loss for the same period is substantial, amounting to 8 cents per share wiped out, but it is a lot less than analyst predictions, which saw as much as 55 cents per share on the chopping block.

Painful progress

As BlackBerry attempts to compete with Google's Android and Apple's iOS, both of which have been encroaching on its core business market, it has looked to restructuring to reduce losses.

Among the options on the table are the sale of some of the company's real estate, like its recently ditched US headquarters, as well as a whopping 40 per cent reduction in its workforce.

Despite the grim figures and even grimmer path ahead, Chen is optimistic about the company's progress and future

"I am very pleased with our progress and execution in fiscal Q4 against the strategy we laid out three months ago. We have significantly streamlined operations, allowing us to reach our expense-reduction target one quarter ahead of schedule," Chen said in an interview with The Toronto Star.